Car-door arrangement



l. A. PILCHER.

CAR DOOR ARRANGEMENT.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. 18. 1922.

Patented 00R 31, E220 JQ A Rfiflwv INVENTOR ATTORNEY Patented Got, 31, 1922.

J 0H1\T A. PILCHER, OF ROANOKE, VIRGINIA.

CAR-DOOR ARRANGEMENT.

Application filed February 18, 1922. Serial No. 537,461.

To all whom it may concern.

Be it known that I, JOHN A. PILOHER, a citizen of the United States, residing at Roanoke, in the county of Roanoke and State of Virginia, have invented certain new anduseful Improvements in Car-Door Arrangements, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to a door arrangement for railway cars, and is particularly applicable to the doors of hopper cars where they are arranged in twin fashion. The object of the invention is to provide a door a rangement wherein the door 'will be effectively sealed in a simple manner so as to prevent loss of lading, particularly when material such as fine coal is to be handled.

lVith this general and other more specific objects in View. such as the provision of an economical form of door stiffening member and an inexpensive form of hinge arrangement, the invention consists of the formation, combination and arrangement of parts as will be herein described and particularly claimed.

In the accompanying drawings, which illustrate in diagrammatical form a set of doors as applied to a railway car, Figure l is a diagrammatical view, in side elevation, of a pair of doors applied to a hopper car. The door to the left in this view is shown as fully closed. The door to the right is shown as partially closed. Figure 2 is a view similar to Figure 1, except that in this view both of the doors are shown as fully closed. Figure 3 is a fragmentary View of a door hinge, the relationship of hinge and hinge pintle in thisview coinciding with the positions of the doors shown in Figure 1. It will be noted that the scale of this figure is somewhat enlarged over that of Figure 1 or Figure 2. Figure 4 is a View similar to Figure 3, but showing the relative positions of hinge and hinge pintle corresponding to the position of the doors in Figure 2.

Referring now to these drawings, the car illustrated for showing the present embodiment of the invention is of a type in general use today, wherein a pair of doors 1 and 2 are hinged along their remote edges to the car body as at 3 and 4. The free edges 5 and 6 of the doors are arranged to contact each other when the doors are closed. The

doors may be supported when closed by any suitable means, but preferably the form of door supporting hooks illustrated in Cremean Patent #1,336,134 is made use of. These hooks are denoted in the present drawings by the numerals 7 and 8. Any suitable form of brackets such as 9 and 10 may be used for securing the hooks to the car side, and the customary locking cams such as 11 and 12 may be supplied to retain the hooks in engagement with the doors The hooks preferably seat beneath the ends of angle iron stiifeners such as 13 and 14 secured to the under faces of the door plates. Thesupporting points are preferably near the free edges of the doors, and it is also preferable that the doors 1 and 2 shall lie upon inclined planes so that the free edges of the doors when closed are lower than the hinged edges thereof. This is desirable so that the effect of gravity may at all times be utilized to hold the door edges in contact with each other when the car is under load and equipped with the present improvements.

It will be noted that the hinge apertures such as 15, shown more clearly in Figures 3 and 4, are elongated in a direction coincident with the width of the doors, or in other words, these apertures are made of such length as to allow a slight slippage of the doors with respect to the hinge pintles 16 thereof, or with respect to the car body, either toward the hinged edge of the door, or away from the hinged edge of door into contact with the abutting edge of the adjacent door.

It will be noted that when the doors are entirely released from the hooks 7 and 8, both doors 1 and 2 will, upon swinging downward, drop to the extremely downward position allowed by the length of the hinge apertures 15. Upon now raising the free edge of door 1, it will remain in this same extreme hinge position, and even when the locking face of the hook 7 is properly seated beneath the one leg of the angle 13, the door 1 will be at the extreme outward position the same, due to the hinge clearance aforesaid.

lVhen door 2 is now lifted up, it will also be in this extreme hinge position, and the edge 6 thereof will, because of this abnormal displacement contact or slightly overlap the corresponding free edge 5 of the door 1. This contacting of the edge 6 of door 2 with the edge 5 of door 1 is clearly shown in Figure 1. As the free edge of door 2 is now more forcibly lifted, the contacting of the edges 5 and 6 will induce sufficient and suitable forces to cause at least one of the doors, and possibly both of them, to slip towardtheir respective hinged edges, so that the doors when fully closed will occupy the tightly abutting positions shown in Figure 2.

The form of door supporting device heretofore noted as especially desirable for use with this type of door allows this slipping movement without any interference from the door supporting mechanism itself.

When the doors are in this closed position, it will be appreciated that the weight of the lading upon the door will constantly tend to hold the doors tightly against each other at 5 and 6, due to the fact that the free edges of the doors are at a lower level than the hinged edges thereof. It will be noted furthermore that the provision for the hooks 7 and 8 to swing toward each other and toward the free edges of the doors into locking position will permit the two doors to keep constantly working toward each other as the car vibrates in transit, without any hindrance from the hook mechanism.

The free edges of the doors are turned downward or formed into roll shape for the purpose of causing this slippage of the doors heretofore described. The curved abutting edge of each door thus forms in effect an inclined plane against which the opposite door may react to produce the effects desired. The rolled edges also constitute integral stiffeners for the edges of.

the doors to prevent buckling of the same.

The door arrangement described provides in a very simple manner an effective means whereby the doors are always held in tight abutment, and when used with a positive securing mechanism such as the hooks shown and identified, provides a door arrangement that offers a maximum of security against loss of lading. The arrangement is entirely inexpensive. as in practice the doors may be constructed in the present manner with practically no additional cost whatsoever.

I have thus described a preferred embodiment of the invention. @ther embodiments are contemplated within the scope of the v the spirit of the same.

lVhat is claimed is:

1. In a door arrangement for railway cars, a door hinged to the car body, along one of its edges, an abutment arranged for contact with the free edge of the door when the same is in closed position, the door being arranged to slightly over-reach the said abutment when nearly closed and being capable of a slight slippage toward its hinge point upon the application of a sliding force to the free edge of the door, the said abutment and the adjacent edge of the door being so associated that force applied to lift the free edge of the door into fully closed position will produce a resultant slippage force of the character set forth.

2. In a door arrangement for railway cars, a door hinged to the car body, the hinges therefor being arranged to allow a slippage of the door to or from the hinge point thereof, door-supporting means, and an abutment arranged for contact with the free edge of the door, the aforesaid slippage be ing of sufficient amount and the parts being so arranged as to permit and cause the free edge of the door to overlap the face of the abutment when the door is nearly closed and the entire door to move toward the hinge point of the door as the closing operation is completed.

3. In a door arrangement for railway cars, a pair of doors hinged to the car body with their free edges adjacent and arranged to abut when the doors are closed, means for supporting the free edges of the doors, the said doors being arranged to over-reach each other at their free edges when nearly closed, the door hinges being arranged to allow a slippage of at least one of the doors toward the hinge point thereof upon application of a sliding face to the free edge of the door.

4:. In a door arrangement for railway cars, a pair of doors hinged along their remote edges to the car body and with, their free edges abutting each other, the hinges for said doors having elongated pintle openings so associated as to permit relative movement of the doors toward'or away from each other in response to suitably directed forces applied thereto, the free edges of the doors being arranged to contact each other when the doors are nearly closed,'- and being so formed and shaped that movement of either door toward fully closed position will cause at least one of the doors to move toward its hinge points.

In testimony whereof I afiix my signature.

JOHN A. PILCHER. 

